I created a little app this week, with the help of Codex, that I'm calling "Portable RSS". There is no server, it is simply a html file you open locally on your PC or phone, make a quick note and save. There aren't a bunch of files, saving actually just adds a new entry to the top of an RSS feed. In fact the whole thing can be contained to two files, the editor, and the feed.xml file. There is a third file called index.html that isn't necessary but if you put it and the feed.xml file on a web server it will render a page with all your notes.
I haven't been using it long but it seems to work fine on my laptop and my android phone. I keep the directories in sync with Syncthing. I have no idea if it will work on iOS. I use the app Material Files to keep a shortcut to the editor.html file on my home screen. Tapping that lets me open the file in my phones browser (Vivaldi or Chrome). Sometimes you do have to relink it to the feed.xml file but it isn't a dealbreaker.
Why build it? Mostly proof of concept and it seemed like a fun project. I haven't figured out my exact use case for it. It currently doesn't include media and the text field is really only for text, not html or markdown. Still, there are other tools that can consume RSS so it might prove useful as I start to use it more. If anyone is interested, maybe I'll make the zip file available.
Somebody dressed Hacker News up as the front page of The New York Times...
Hacker Times takes the front page of Hacker News and lays it out like a newspaper, with a masthead, columns and a lead story up top. The site calls itself "An independent, AI-edited front page from Hacker News, updated hourly," and adds, in case anybody's lawyers are reading, that it's "Not affiliated with The New York Times or Hacker News."
Robot successfully builds space structure in first autonomous construction demo:
This breakthrough could enable future applications such as space telescopes, radio antennas, and solar arrays, offering a new way to deploy large structures beyond the limits of current launch technology. The project confirms that autonomous in-space construction is viable and opens new research avenues for building large-scale space infrastructure.
via: https://phys.org/news/2026-11-robot-successfully-space-autonomous-demo.html
Handy Windows utility for keeping things up to date | UniGetUI by Devolutions | Windows package manager GUI https://devolutions.net/unigetui/ 'One GUI for WinGet, Scoop, Snap, Chocolatey, Pip, Npm, and more'
#Windows
TIL about JPEG XL aka JXL. Guess it's been around for awhile but it is now getting wider adoption. Looks interesting. https://jpeg.org/jpegxl/index.html
#JPEGXL #ImageCompression #DigitalImaging #photography
Watched 'The Menu' last night. One of those movies you can't really talk about without giving things away. I'll be thinking about this one for a while.
The Menu (2022) - IMDb https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9764362/ 'A young couple travels to a remote island to eat at an exclusive restaurant where the chef has prepared a lavish menu, with some shocking surprises.'
#movies
How Soon Will AI Dramatically Change the Economy?:
Dwarkesh Patel, in an interview with Tyler Cowen, argues that by the end of the decade, AI minds will surpass human minds in intelligence and speed, and will vastly outnumber humans. He warns that these advanced AI systems—especially those capable of self-improvement—could rapidly outpace human development, potentially leading to a loss of human control over key institutions and decision-making.
Linus Torvalds has started using AI to develop the Linux kernel:
"“The code, the test programs, the review that forms the basis of the list above, and the first draft of this text were produced with the help of an LLM coding assistant (Claude Code) under my supervision,” Linus Torvalds writes in the documentation."
Senate Unanimously Passes the Health Care Cybersecurity and Resiliency Act:
"The Health Care Cybersecurity and Resiliency Act requires certain cybersecurity measures to be adopted, such as encryption of electronic protected health information, implementation of multifactor authentication, ongoing monitoring for cyber events, and penetration tests. The bill also requires the adoption of cybersecurity best practices in line with national cybersecurity frameworks such as the NIST Cybersecurity Framework."
Is it stealing to use your work-issued Excel to manage your car shopping? Just a simple spreadsheet of pluses and minuses of each brand and model. Now, how about using your work issued AI of choice to do the comparisons for you? Or, use it to vibe-code the next car shopping app.
The ethics here seem like big issues to me that aren't being thought through. Then again, I'm nowhere near CIO level so maybe they are? I suppose the answer is in monitoring token use since that is easier to monitor that what is being tracked in Excel.
#ai #ethics
i missed the old internet, so i built a 1996 chat room.
not servers. not channels. a room. you walk in, strangers are mid-conversation about a tape deck, somebody says "a/s/l" unironically.
no account, no app, no algorithm. just pick a screen name and go. Late Night is best after eleven.
lolchat.rip - a 1996 chat room
Using AI in many cases means sending your most sensitive and intimate thoughts to a server where they can be exploited as training data, sold to ad brokers, or even handed to law enforcement.
This website renders live baseball games as pixel art. This is my favorite recent thing on the internet and it’s why I think the indie web is so important. I’ve had 8bit games like this up on my second monitor most nights while I game or do other things.
Ribbie: 8-bit baseball
Somewhere along the line I broke my RSS feed and it stopped validating correctly. I probably wouldn't have noticed but then I tried to add the feed to FreshRSS and it barked at me. Note to self: recheck everything, especially after late night coding.
#indieweb
Study shows marvels of the Roman Empire's road network:
"The study showed the old adage "all roads lead to Rome" was not exactly true, and the empire's later imperial capital Constantinople — present-day Istanbul — was a better fit for that maxim."
TIL about ".home.arpa" top-level domain (RFC 8375) for you home LAN domain. I never bothered setting up a domain on my home router. Giving this a try to help name resolution. There are arguments for using a real domain that you've purchased doing something like .lan.myrealdomainname.com so the you don't have to worry about certs and browsing just "works" but I'll give this a try first just to test the waters. FAFO as they say. #SelfHosting#networking
I am planning a self-hosting build and am currently trying to decide between a full Docker setup (I'm comfortable installing the OS, but Docker is still relatively new to me) or exploring options with a bit more user-friendliness, such as Yunohost or CasaOS. I don't mind working at the command line, but additional helpful interfaces might make the experience feel less like a second IT job. If anyone has experience with this I'd appreciate your insight.
#Docker #SelfHosting #YunoHost #CasaOS
WHOA. #HTML #ASCII #stunting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YtygAx_C6A
A Walkable ASCII Cyberpunk City in One HTML File - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YtygAx_C6A
Really nice tutorial on Darktable | 10 Step Darktable Workflow (Start to Finish) - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RLv8NeJc2Q 'If you're looking for a free alternative to Lightroom but feel overwhelmed by darktable’s interface — this video will show you a structured, repeatable workflow that actually works.'
#photography
